Last night Mount Gambier’s Steven Lines gave his car owner Brian Hall a late Christmas present by securing the $20,000 on offer in the inaugural Speedway City Smackdown. In front of a massive Boxing Day crowd Lines defeated James McFadden and Brad Keller, who secured his fourth successive Boxing Day Speedway City podium result.

But despite the fact that Lines won the 35 Lap A-main James McFadden was the standout as he charged back to the runner-up spot after being sent to the rear in a lap 13 incident. While leading the pack McFadden was caught up in an incident involving the lapped cars of Dan Evans and Luke Bowey with the result being McFadden spinning to avoid the incident narrowly missing contact while second placed Jamie Veal wasn’t so lucky with the contact putting him out with a flat right rear.

With Lines being the third car through he missed the incident but it wasn’t all plain sailing from there as Matt Egel wrestled the lead away shortly after but would later retire after his front wing mounts collapsed on his Downing Brothers owned #97.

“I didn’t feel that fast in the middle stages of the race when I was back in third and then Matt got by me but I did everything I could to get the lead back. Sometimes things just go your way. James and Jamie were unlucky with what happened to them, they both had great cars but I can’t thank my guys enough and of course Wendy Turner for putting on such a great night”.

Fourth across the line was American randy Hannagan with Ryan Jones completing the top five after starting from position 17. Jamie Cobby, Hayden Pitt, Mark Caruso, Steven Caruso and Ricky Maiolo rounded out the top 10 in the Ultra Tune / Tyre Power Campbelltown supported finale.

Another highlight of the night was the Ultra Tune / Tyre Power Campbelltown Pole Shuffle that was won by McFadden but the charge by Jamie Veal in the Krikke Motorsports Hot Rod was great to watch as he went from position 8 to 4 but his exit was quite controversial as he was excluded for jumping the start against Steven Lines.